Christmas

I hope everyone had a merry Christmas! I know we did. When we woke up, this is what our tree looked like.


Dave did a good job for me- among other things, I got some awesome books, a Steelers winter coat (yay!), a Steelers mailbox cover, Drum Game stuffed animals, and Reese's peanut butter cups. Dave's boss got him Guitar Hero: World Tour which I already love. (Notice The Christmas Story playing on our tv, lol.)

And even Tigger got a present she loved.

My main gifts for Dave were jerseys. An old NFL Europe jersey from the Scottish Claymores that I have been searching for for about a year, and a gray Steelers jersey.

Dave really likes the Claymores jersey. :) He of course has his Steelers hat on too.

Typical picture of us. :)

Milo opening presents with Daddy (John) and Aunt Nancy.

Bruce and Sara posing.

Aunt Nancy got me a bottle of Patron, my favorite tequila! She drew my name in our gift exchange. (I drew Dave's mom.)

Aunt Nancy and Uncle Bill, outside Beth's house

Heather, Bruce, Hanna, and Sara

Dave, Heather, and Beth

FIRSTthursday Christmas service

Our band, FIRSTthursday, played a Christmas service in Kittanning this past Friday. Here are some pictures that were taken while we were practicing and after the service.

I play the keyboard and sing. This time I was REALLY nervous. I think it had to do with lack of practice since I was in China. On the song O Come, O Come, Emmanuel, I was the only music (Don and Jenny also sang vocals though) and it wasn't an easy song, so I kind of psyched myself out. I kept practicing and was fine with it but as soon as I had to play it for real I screwed up some notes.

Don plays guitar and is the worship leader. He sings the lead vocals.

Dave plays the drums of course. :)

And Jay plays the bass. We were actually playing at his home church this time.

We also have another singer, Jenny, but she sent these pictures and didn't send any of herself. You can see her on the left in the picture below.

And we decided we didn't have a recent picture of the group of us, so we had our picture taken after the service was over. We took some serious pictures but my favorites are the ones where we were goofing around a little bit.

We won an award!

East Winds Symphonic Band won the 2008 Sudler Silver Scroll, a prestigious award given to community bands. We aren't listed there yet, but here is more information on the award:

http://www.sousafoundation.org

Only 1 band a year has won this award since 1987, so it's a great honor. We were nominated based on a concert we played in Corning, NY this past April. If there's an article in the local paper, I'll try to get the link and post it on here.

This was from the note sent to our band director, telling us we won the award.

"What a wonderful band you have. On Thursday we were able to review the materials that you sent in with the application and this certainly made a stronger case for the East Symphonic Winds. You guys do good things around the community AND play extremely well."

Yay for vacation!

Ok I'm posting at lunch at work but I think it's ok.

Today is my last day of the year. Well, I have to make up 4 hours but I don't really count that. It's going to be super quiet in here and I think 4 hours will really fly on Monday or Tuesday. I certainly have work to do, so it won't drag!

Westinghouse requires everyone to use up their vacation by the end of the year. So everyone disappears. Even today it's really quiet. It can get a bit unnerving, actually.

I can't believe Christmas is less than a week away! This year it has really flown. Dave and I have the tree up with ornaments on it, but that's about it. I'm hoping to really decorate the inside of the house tomorrow. It makes it feel more Christmasy.

Christmas day we'll be going to Beth's house and spending time with Dave's family. Then Sunday my parents are coming into town through New Year's Day. I'm not sure what we'll be doing there, but I know Dave has to work most of those days. Maybe we can pelt snowballs at his window at work. :)

Anyway, good luck with your last minute Christmas shopping 'nat! I've been done, I like to do that early. We're waiting for one shipment and we have something small to pick up for someone, but everything is wrapped and under the tree.

I love Christmas!

Elmira Jackals

So I said I would post about Dave and the hockey game over Thanksgiving. We went with my dad and sister (Allison) to an Elmira Jackals game. They are a minor league hockey team, at the same level as the Wheeling Nailers. We'd really like to see them play in Wheeling some day. (Wheeling is affiliated with the Penguins.)

We went early and Dave got a chance to participate in a "game" on the ice between the 2nd and 3rd periods. It was really neat. He shot a puck at the net, where a board was set up that had 3 holes. They were pretty small- the middle one was about the size of the puck, and if Dave got it in, the whole section won ice cream. If he got the puck in the two side holes (which were slightly bigger), the whole row won ice cream. And just for participating, he won free ice cream.

I had my camera phone, and they let me stand right by the ice where the zamboni comes out. I gave him a kiss for good luck and cheered on the side.

He was the first to go, and he shot the puck. It headed right for the net but at the angle I was at, I couldn't really see it hit the board. I was cheering and all of a sudden he was raising his hands in the air. The puck went in the middle hole!!!!! It was amazing. The announcer said he was only the 2nd person to do it.

As we walked away, we also found out it was a year worth of free ice cream! We got coupons for half gallons of Perry's ice cream, which is so yummy.

Dave walked back with the announcer and a grocery cart full of ice cream. They passed it out to our section and he got a rousing cheer when he got back to his seat. It was so exciting!

Now we need to find a place that sells Perry's ice cream here in Pittsburgh. I never realized I haven't seen it in grocery stores here. A search online says it's UniMart here so we have to find one around. I have never heard of that store. Maybe this afternoon sometime, we'll see if we can find one. We told our bowling league we would bring ice cream for the Christmas party tonight. (If we eat a year's worth of ice cream ourselves instead of sharing, we will both get fat, haha!)

Go Dave! I'm so proud of you. :)

Back from China!

Wow, it's been a few weeks since I posted. But I also didn't want to log on while I was in China.

I'll write more about the trip later; right now I'm finally catching up on sleep and back on East Coast time (I think). I can tell you that my trip was an enlightening experience, in many ways. And it ended up being a lot of fun, even though I was really dreading the trip. The plane ride is pretty tedious but once I got there, I got to know some coworkers better and even made a few new friends!

I came back to cold and snow. LOL. In China, most of the days, it was around 60 degrees. And no snow. But snow definitely makes it start to feel like Christmas. I can't believe Christmas is less than 2 weeks away! My shopping is mostly done but we have almost no decorations up. While I was gone, Dave put up our Christmas tree but we still need to put ornaments up. And I love to decorate but so far haven't been motivated (or awake) enough to do it. Poor Dave, I have barely been able to keep my eyes open to stay awake.

Anyway, hopefully we'll decorate a bit this weekend! But soon we're heading out to an East Winds concert. I'm not playing because I wasn't supposed to get back until late Thursday night (got home 2 days early because our meeting was 2 days shorter) and I figured I wouldn't be in shape to play a concert at that point. So this will be the first time I sit and listen to the group.